No one can live on foods of penitence
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“No one can live on foods of penitence.” (- Mollie Katzen)
I appreciate the sentiment trying to be conveyed but try telling this to people who are actually starving. I guess it's the lack of context but it comes off as very 'let them eat cake'-ish.2 -
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“No one can live on foods of penitence.” (- Mollie Katzen)
I appreciate the sentiment trying to be conveyed but try telling this to people who are actually starving. I guess it's the lack of context but it comes off as very 'let them eat cake'-ish.
You are correct, of course. But the intended audience was MFP members who are struggling with what to eat while losing weight. Yes, it's a "first world problem", but we are first worlders and this is one of our problems.15 -
There was also the horrible practice of baking so-called horse bread. That is bread cut with other non-digestible ingredients--saw dust, grass, straw bits, even sand--used as a filler. So you feel full on bread made from free stuff kicking around the yard, but there's no calories or nutrition and it'll ruin your digestive tract over time. I always think of horse bread when I eat low- and no-calorie products.
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But at least they were bikini-ready, tee hee.1
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tabletop_joe wrote: »There was also the horrible practice of baking so-called horse bread. That is bread cut with other non-digestible ingredients--saw dust, grass, straw bits, even sand--used as a filler. So you feel full on bread made from free stuff kicking around the yard, but there's no calories or nutrition and it'll ruin your digestive tract over time. I always think of horse bread when I eat low- and no-calorie products.
Oh my goodness, I've never heard of horse bread before. That sounds horrible
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Alatariel75 wrote: »Speaking of penitence, here is the 1972 Weight Watchers program. Ever wonder why people think weight loss has to be penitential?
Some highlights:You must eat liver at least once a weekCheeses are "illegal" if they are soft enough to spread evenly and not hard enough to slice easily. Do not use cheese spreads.The skim milk we allow is the instant non-fat dry milk, reconstitute according to label directions; or skim milk labeled either "skimmed milk" or "modified" or "fortified skim milk" with no whole milk solids added. Do not use milk labeled "a skimmed milk product" or "99% fat free." Your daily allowance of evaporated skimmed milk may be diluted with an equal amount of water to make a total of 16 ounces skim milk. The buttermilk may be made from either whole or combination of skim milk and whole milk; Bulgarian buttermilk is not permitted.Do not eat or drink the following (except, of course, for "legal" recipes as given in this book):
Alcoholic beverages, beer, wine
Bacon or back fat (fat back)
Butter
Cake, cookies, crackers, pies
Candy, chocolate
Catsup, chili sauce
Coconut or coconut oil
Corn
Cream, sweet or sour
Cream cheese
Fried foods
Fruit, dried, canned in syrup or dietetic
Ice cream, ice milk, ices and sherbets
Jams, jellies, or preserves
Luncheon meats
Muffins, biscuits
Non-dairy creamers or toppings
Olives or olive oils
Pancakes, waffles
Peanut butter
Peanuts, other nuts
Pizza
Popcorn, potato chips, pretzels
Pork products
Puddings, custards, flavored gelatin desserts
Raw fish or meat
Specialty breads
Salad dressings
Sardines
Smoked fish (except finnan haddie and salmon)
Soda pop, ades, punch
Soups
Sugar
Syrups
My mum still has the box with all the 70s material in it! Some of the recipe cards are HORRIFIC haahaa
OH: here's some!! http://www.candyboots.com/wwcards.html
Oh, boy, does that bring back memories. Fish 5 times a week and liver at least once a week!0 -
“No one can live on foods of penitence.” (- Mollie Katzen)
I appreciate the sentiment trying to be conveyed but try telling this to people who are actually starving. I guess it's the lack of context but it comes off as very 'let them eat cake'-ish.
I would think there are no foods of penitence for people who are starving.
Like @Jruzer said: First world privileged audience, matching sentiment. Only meaningful, like so many things, in context.
And all the more reason to feel grateful we have choices, were born into lucky times, places, situations.5 -
tabletop_joe wrote: »There was also the horrible practice of baking so-called horse bread. That is bread cut with other non-digestible ingredients--saw dust, grass, straw bits, even sand--used as a filler. So you feel full on bread made from free stuff kicking around the yard, but there's no calories or nutrition and it'll ruin your digestive tract over time. I always think of horse bread when I eat low- and no-calorie products.
wasn't there a 1970s bread sold for high fiber that actually had wood pulp in it?0 -
tabletop_joe wrote: »piperdown44 wrote: »Now I'm really curious what penitent foods would be?
Caster Oil?
Kale?
For me...fried liver. Or just about any way to prepare liver (shudder)
I think I read somewhere that the various religious orders of monks, for fasting or penitence, would be where they did not eat. However, beer was not considered food during that time, so they would drink their yummy beer. THAT I could do for fasting or penitence
This story is probably apocryphal, but it's too good not to share. (Source)So you gave up dessert for Lent? Good for you, you wimp! Once upon a time, German monks ate nothing for the entirety of the Lenten fast. No bread, no salad, no fruit—nothing. Beat that.
How did they survive, you ask? By imbibing large quantities of heavy, calorie rich beer, of course!
Around 700 years ago, German monks in the town of Einbeck developed a specific style of malty, dark, high alcohol beer to help sustain them during intense periods of fasting. This beer became known as Bock, a corruption of the name Einbeck. Later, discontent with the strength of Bock style beer, monks developed an even stronger variant known as Doppelbock, meaning double Bock. This beer was so laden with nutrition that some dubbed it “liquid bread.”
Now, these beers were so delicious that the monks began to wonder if they were contrary to the spirit of Lenten penance. Being faithful sons of the Church, they decided to consult the pope. On the journey to Rome, however, the beer was subjected to extreme weather conditions, causing it to spoil and turn sour. When the pope tasted it, he was so appalled by the spoiled beer that he immediately deemed it an excellent Lenten penance.
I read a great book, The Third Horseman: A Story of Weather, War, and the Famine History Forgot by William Rosen. I could be botching the numbers somewhat, but I believe the book calculated that the average peasant from West/Central Europe (Flanders and surrounding regions) in the 1300's consumed about 2100 calories per day in non-famine times. It sounds like enough until you factor in the sheer amount of daily physical labor, then you realize most folks were slowly starving their whole lives. What's even more remarkable is that up 900 of those calories were from ale or beer--so it wasn't just the relatively wealthy cleric class who made it by on nearly drinks alone during Lent!
Also, it's not true that people didn't drink water in the Middle Ages. Water was frequently consumed--usually safely too.
average would be key here and I don't think that they were slowly starving but slim and fit.
We are so used to people not being slim and fit that apparently it is getting equated to starving...
Considering the average peasant in the middle ages would be lucky, if they made it out of childhood, to live to the ripe of age of 45, I don't think "slim and fit" is quite the descriptor that applies.
At a moderate deficit, it can take a very, very long time to 'starve'. Metabolic adaption, which would have been rife, would have extended that even further. Periodic times of relative plenty would also extend life expectancy. Just because they weren't starving in a swift and linear fashion doesn't mean that they didn't live basically their entire lives in a position of deprivation and deficit.1 -
tabletop_joe wrote: »There was also the horrible practice of baking so-called horse bread. That is bread cut with other non-digestible ingredients--saw dust, grass, straw bits, even sand--used as a filler. So you feel full on bread made from free stuff kicking around the yard, but there's no calories or nutrition and it'll ruin your digestive tract over time. I always think of horse bread when I eat low- and no-calorie products.
wasn't there a 1970s bread sold for high fiber that actually had wood pulp in it?
For what it's worth, the answer is ... yes.
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/16/garden/wood-pulp-as-fiber-in-bread.html0 -
tabletop_joe wrote: »There was also the horrible practice of baking so-called horse bread. That is bread cut with other non-digestible ingredients--saw dust, grass, straw bits, even sand--used as a filler. So you feel full on bread made from free stuff kicking around the yard, but there's no calories or nutrition and it'll ruin your digestive tract over time. I always think of horse bread when I eat low- and no-calorie products.
wasn't there a 1970s bread sold for high fiber that actually had wood pulp in it?
A lot of current "Low Carb" and/or "high fiber!" prepared foods use cellulose as filler.
Ironic - a century after we outlaw ersatz foods because they were starving poor babies (see also the history of milk regulation), we're back to adding wood chips to bread and water to milk, because our surplus calories are making kids fat instead....
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tabletop_joe wrote: »There was also the horrible practice of baking so-called horse bread. That is bread cut with other non-digestible ingredients--saw dust, grass, straw bits, even sand--used as a filler. So you feel full on bread made from free stuff kicking around the yard, but there's no calories or nutrition and it'll ruin your digestive tract over time. I always think of horse bread when I eat low- and no-calorie products.
wasn't there a 1970s bread sold for high fiber that actually had wood pulp in it?
A lot of current "Low Carb" and/or "high fiber!" prepared foods use cellulose as filler.
Ironic - a century after we outlaw ersatz foods because they were starving poor babies (see also the history of milk regulation), we're back to adding wood chips to bread and water to milk, because our surplus calories are making kids fat instead....
Cellulose doesn't come only from trees though. It's found in many plants and isn't dangerous to eat. It passes right through your digestive track like many other forms of fiber.0 -
I think the key is consumer awareness! It's all fine and good if I know I'm eating lousy. If I have no idea that a bakery is feeding me mulch (like that odious 70's bread--and Subway's yoga mat scandal more recently), that's a whole other story.0
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tabletop_joe wrote: »I think the key is consumer awareness! It's all fine and good if I know I'm eating lousy. If I have no idea that a bakery is feeding me mulch (like that odious 70's bread--and Subway's yoga mat scandal more recently), that's a whole other story.
My BIL knows I love my green shaker of grated parmesan cheese. He recently read and article on FB about it containing "wood pulp" and gleefully told me about it. I replied "Yeah, I know. It's on the ingredients label."
It doesn't bother me a bit. I've even eaten peanut shells, which I later learned are mostly cellulose. I like fiber.
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tabletop_joe wrote: »I think the key is consumer awareness! It's all fine and good if I know I'm eating lousy. If I have no idea that a bakery is feeding me mulch (like that odious 70's bread--and Subway's yoga mat scandal more recently), that's a whole other story.
Subway wasn't literally putting yoga mats in their bread, FYI. I wouldn't consider a dough conditioner "mulch."3 -
janejellyroll wrote: »tabletop_joe wrote: »I think the key is consumer awareness! It's all fine and good if I know I'm eating lousy. If I have no idea that a bakery is feeding me mulch (like that odious 70's bread--and Subway's yoga mat scandal more recently), that's a whole other story.
Subway wasn't literally putting yoga mats in their bread, FYI. I wouldn't consider a dough conditioner "mulch."
Okay, Jared. 1 -
tabletop_joe wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »tabletop_joe wrote: »I think the key is consumer awareness! It's all fine and good if I know I'm eating lousy. If I have no idea that a bakery is feeding me mulch (like that odious 70's bread--and Subway's yoga mat scandal more recently), that's a whole other story.
Subway wasn't literally putting yoga mats in their bread, FYI. I wouldn't consider a dough conditioner "mulch."
Okay, Jared.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/03/06/286886095/almost-500-foods-contain-the-yoga-mat-compound-should-we-care-keep1 -
Alatariel75 wrote: »tabletop_joe wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »tabletop_joe wrote: »I think the key is consumer awareness! It's all fine and good if I know I'm eating lousy. If I have no idea that a bakery is feeding me mulch (like that odious 70's bread--and Subway's yoga mat scandal more recently), that's a whole other story.
Subway wasn't literally putting yoga mats in their bread, FYI. I wouldn't consider a dough conditioner "mulch."
Okay, Jared.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/03/06/286886095/almost-500-foods-contain-the-yoga-mat-compound-should-we-care-keep
Yeah, I didn't have to read past the words "food babe" to know this was woo.2 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »tabletop_joe wrote: »There was also the horrible practice of baking so-called horse bread. That is bread cut with other non-digestible ingredients--saw dust, grass, straw bits, even sand--used as a filler. So you feel full on bread made from free stuff kicking around the yard, but there's no calories or nutrition and it'll ruin your digestive tract over time. I always think of horse bread when I eat low- and no-calorie products.
wasn't there a 1970s bread sold for high fiber that actually had wood pulp in it?
A lot of current "Low Carb" and/or "high fiber!" prepared foods use cellulose as filler.
Ironic - a century after we outlaw ersatz foods because they were starving poor babies (see also the history of milk regulation), we're back to adding chips to bread and water to milk, because our surplus calories are making kids fat instead....
Cellulose doesn't come only from trees though. It's found in many plants and isn't dangerous to eat. It passes right through your digestive track like many other forms of fiber.
And if it does come from trees, who cares? That's immaterial to determining what's unhealthful. We eat tree parts routinely. Cinnamon (bark) and maple syrup (sap) are two I can think of off the top of my head, without even researching, let alone getting into nuts and fruits.
Jeesh, the stuff that click-bait web sites and health hysteria peddlers come up with, to get people whipped up!
Just laying this out there, as it's one of the best pieces of satire for this sort of thing that I've ever seen:
http://www.dhmo.org
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